“It’s good to not understand," I say. "If you understand that means you can grasp it. I want to believe in something I can’t even fathom. Don’t you?”
This is all discussed among cigarette after cigarette, but I don’t smoke anymore. Occasionally I take a sip of Sprite and close the bottle back up meaningfully, as if I’d had enough. One guy here won’t make it to next week. He’s already relapsed and he’s talking about going on a run, selling his amp and somehow getting his car back and taking it all the way to Jersey.
“As if anything good is happening in Jersey,” the guy I’m seeing jokes. He actually knows my ex-boyfriend, another former junkie who turned a corner and now gets people into treatment, and as of now they hate each other, but in three months they will cross paths at the gym and realize they’re meant to be friends. For now we shit talk the ex-boyfriend and I am in a good place because I’m winning. I’m helping people. I’m driving the van to meetings and picking up kids off the street. I’m telling people they should believe in something.
I’m all set to go to graduate school in the fall, get my Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction, and all these boys will become a part of my story. We go to the beach during the day and sit in a circle. No one goes in the water except me. I’m carefree and moving toward something better than where I’ve been. Even if I’m in the in-between, I know I’m heading out of it.
The last time we ever hang out we go to a club in Fort Lauderdale on a weekend. His mom pays for a hotel room and I pack a tight black dress. We meet some friends out and dance until 2:00 a.m. On the way back, my guy chainsmokes and tells me he almost has a year. Back at the hotel, he has a headache and lies supine on the bed, like a saint. I feed him Advil and Gatorade and declare it’s dehydration, the heat, the Florida heat, the Florida summer has gotten to him.
“You’re so nice,” he says, eyes closed, about to drift off and dream of other things. I rub his temples and he falls asleep. I fall asleep in my dress next him.
“The deal’s this,” my new boyfriend says. It’s how he always starts his sentences when we begin our relationship. Then he goes into the energies.
“Stay in the lightness. If you feel darkness ask the question, ‘Who does this belong do?’ Then shift it.”
I nod, but inside I wonder, what if it belongs to me? What if it is mine? Then how do I adjust? I’ve spent the last few years running from my troubles, running from problems that might have been my own. Not the wrong city, not the wrong job. I was wrong. I was unable. I was unwilling. All this time I’ve been looking for someone to be my guide, like how my brother used to be, how he used to lead me and protect me and show me the way. Now I must do all that for myself. I’ve become my own sibling, my own parent, my own friend. I can’t speak to him when he’s living how he is, but I want my brother back, badly. I yearn for late night phone calls. Dinners. Holidays. Birthdays. Memories. I miss his laugh more than anything.
“Realizing I was wrong was the most freeing feeling,” I say. He smokes and listens intently. I lean back in a chair on the porch and gaze into the night sky.
“The next part will be better,” he answers, stamping out his cigarette in the ashtray and leaning in for a kiss.
When we break up, he tells me he will pray for me.
The Perpetual Motion Machine
An ex-boyfriend of mine flew in from Chicago. In California he had promised me Catalina. On the phone he said, “Key West.” He flew down to Florida and we drove. We shared an egg and cheese croissant and coffee on the way down. He was out of a job and I was waitressing at a sports bar. I knew I’d be paying for the whole thing—the hotel room, the gas, the everything. I knew all the tips that had ever made their way into my green apron would disappear into the Florida Keys.
Near the end of the drive we come to a sparse stretch of bridges, each one looking less and less reliable. I eat an apple out of anxiety and think about the difference between skin and flesh, what we put out into the world versus what’s really inside. As we ride over one of the bridges, I throw my apple as far as I can out the window and watch it land in the water. The car jerks because he wants to see where it lands. He wants to see the splash to know it has been a success. The car realigns and it’s the kind of thing you hold your breath for. The kind of fear that makes you pray to God.
We check into the hotel and he needs a fax machine. He’s moving again and needs to get some information to the landlord. He won’t have cable TV in his next apartment. This is before he gets money again and makes a living taking pictures and selling ads and using drugs. Now he is in the lobby making out a letter to his soon-to-be roommate. He wears swim trunks and flip-flops back in the state he was raised in, but no one knows he is here except for me, not even his family who live a few hours north.
We came back to New York when I was finally old enough to get my birthmark removed. My parents wanted me to use the same laser surgeon who removed a wart from my finger in the second grade, the one with good bedside manner and a nice office in the city. Dad was still commuting, which made it convenient for us to stay with him in his hotel room, and Mom decided to make the trip a week long so I could recover before heading back to Florida.
The procedure was explained to me many times; the doctor would numb the area with a series of shots. This would hurt the most. “Every nerve below the skin has to be put to sleep,” he said, trying to make me understand. All I knew was that I wanted the birthmark gone. I wanted to be able to wear bikinis at the pool and not get made fun of for having a giant circle on my side. I was eleven, and I didn’t want to be the only girl in a one piece anymore. I wanted to be sexy.
The surgery hurt more than I anticipated. To this day, no pain resembles one quite like being awake while the doctor put each nerve to sleep, numbing them by setting them on fire, one by one. Some nerves never woke up and patches on my side remain numb and lifeless. The day before we headed back to Florida, Mom took Skyler and me to see the Statue of Liberty. We used to go a lot as kids, but I didn’t remember how majestic she was, how green she was in person, like a hospital gown.
Mom went to buy tickets so we could ascend the statue. I kept feeling under my shirt at the bandages that were leaking. Mom kept looking back at us and seemed to be getting angry. I walked up to her and asked what was wrong.
“Go back over there!” Mom yelled.
I walked back over to Skyler.
“There’s a sign that says no one can go up to the crown right now,” Skyler said. “So Mom is probably arguing with the lady.”
“Well, what are we going to do?” I asked.
“She’ll figure something out,” he said.
Just then, Mom came back over to us smiling.
“How did you do it this time?” Skyler asked.
“I told them Britt was terminally ill. So you better look real sick.”
All those steps made my wound bleed even more, but it was worth it. There are pictures of me from that day in my baby blue eyeliner and a red headband, happy and smiling but hunched over a bit because of the pain.
On the first night in the Keys, after walking down Duval and taking in the pink sunset, we sit in the hotel room and watch reruns of old Disney Channel shows. He buys us some tall boys to drink by the pool and we decide to take ecstasy, like old times. I brought it because I knew he’d do it with me. I knew we would get to that point where we’d run out of sad stories and need to make some new ones.
It goes like this: He’s happy when I wear the lime green sweatshirt. I keep it on even though I’m hot too. He can’t seem to get his temperature right. He only wants the Gatorade poured into cups before drinking it. I’m by the mini fridge in the hotel room, rationing our supply, measuring the neon red liquid, trying to make it as even as possible. He takes a shower, insisting it will help. I just want him to jump in the pool and get his body cool again. He says this is the only way though, that the drugs have taken effect and he knows a hot shower will help. He steps out in a towel and says he feels bet
ter, but I know he doesn’t quite yet. We lay on the bed and I put on music. He suggests some band I’ve never heard of, so I put it on and it’s perfection. I’m in the exact center of the room and his head is in my lap, so he’s in the middle too, and we’re in the middle of something here, something greater than what either of us will ever know, an agreement with the universe that if we can get through tonight alive, we will repay it somehow, but without the pressure or confines of any kind of real contract, as this is sworn by simply closing our eyes and listening to the music vibrating in the room. I know it will all be okay in the end, but he doesn’t. One person should always be the knower though, and one person should always be unsure, so that the other one can assure them. Underneath my sweatshirt, the strings of my bathing suit are too tight, but I know if I move, the whole thing will fall apart, this safe haven, this contract we’ve created between heaven and earth, this ever-circling sound of the acoustic guitar and some guy’s voice who I don’t know, rocking us gently like babies, telling us we’ve got a deal.
I got invited to an all-expense-paid trip to New York by an ex-boyfriend. We started dating in high school and were on and off for years, but we were so young, and it always seemed that we were meant to be friends rather than lovers. He broke up with me when he went to college, but we got back together when I attended the same university as him out in Indiana a year later. We took a break junior year and when I dated someone else for a while, he was never able to forgive me. He was a senior, all set to move to New York after graduation.
“I thought you’d meet me there in a year and we’d get married,” he said before ending it between us. All I could think about was how I spent so much time dating guys and obsessing over “love.” I didn’t even know what I wanted out of life. I had no idea what I wanted the rest of my life to be.
But I was in a bad spot a few years ago, and he invited me to New York for the week. He paid for everything because I couldn’t, and because he would never have made me pay anyway. He was always a gentleman, a nice Jewish boy, and despite everything that had happened between us years ago, he still cared about me, a lot. I didn’t care about myself though, at all. I didn’t know how to receive love, how to love myself.
When I arrived in New York, I dropped my bags off at his apartment. He tried to kiss me on his bed and I told him no. I said I wasn’t capable of anything intimate, and I hoped he would understand. He nodded, and we left to grab dinner and see a show. He took me to see Aladdin, because Disney is and will always be my favorite, and I got peanut M&Ms and a Sprite. He got two glasses of wine that came in plastic collectable cups, but when I refused that too, he proceeded to drink both and then order another. The show was amazing, and the Broadway Theatre glowed gold and warm, a nice contrast to the cold outside, allowing me to be comfortable in my sweater. He kept drinking. I tried to stay focused on the genie’s beautiful solo, the love story blossoming, thinking maybe I could “get in the mood,” but I was still so sad from my recent break-up, I simply could not.
After the show we walked for a while and it became clear how drunk he was. He was slurring his words and tripping, so I said I’d pay for a cab.
“Ha! You’re going to pay, that’s rich!” He yelled at me on the sidewalk.
“I don’t feel comfortable walking with you. Let’s just hail a cab.”
“Hail a cab? No one says that. You’re just a dumb slut.”
“That’s not nice.”
“Oh my God. You won’t even DO anything. So it’s not true. But you still are a slut. And a bitch.”
“I’m getting a cab.”
“Oh my God! I’ll call an Uber. Like, don’t worry.”
We went back to the apartment where he smoked out of his bong, offered me some, and I got high. I hadn’t smoked weed in four years. He passed out immediately and I got so high that I stayed up for hours watching The Mindy Project on his TV. I kept the volume on low so I wouldn’t wake him up. It was so quiet in the city and in his apartment. Even though he apologized the next morning, the whole thing made me realize that maybe I wasn’t the only one who was hurting. I had done things without self-awareness. I had acted out of desire. I wanted to be someone I wasn’t good at pretending to be. I made a promise to myself to find out who I really was.
On the last day, we got coffee and walked around Central Park. I texted my ex back in Florida a picture of the cityscape and he said he missed me. I remember finding addresses of girls in his emails that he left open on his computer. It made me curious enough to read his bedside notebook and find out he wanted to sleep with a girl he worked with, a girl he would talk to at lunchtime, trying to get closer to her every day while eating the lunch I made for him. He asked when I would be back from my trip. He said he wanted to hang out and talk.
My ex and I decide to go on a guided snorkeling tour. The boat leaves at noon and we cross from South Street to Whitehead Street all the way down to the Marina. We pass Hemingway’s house and take a photo in front. I now realize the tragedy that is Key West and how one can certainly go down the rabbit hole here, deeply. We approach a bar and decide to stop for a few drinks and a game of pool, which I win somehow, and then lose to him in a game of darts. The bar is quiet but some locals are getting their early morning drinks in.
It’s not until the boat leaves the dock that I remember I get seasick. We stand away from everyone and watch the Keys fade away into a small strip thin as paper. We are away now. The catamaran is big enough that I don’t feel sick at all and we get our gear on and line up to jump off the boat. I spit into my mask and rub in the saliva like my dad taught me to the first time I went snorkeling. It won’t fog up this way. It will remain clear. We jump into the water. I follow him. We’re supposed to stay within certain borderlines of the group but he traverses those boundaries and goes off on his own. He signals me over and below is a school of fish fluttering through a reef. Here we are, the two of us, doing things together like we always wanted, but something feels different about it, like it’s too late. Like we had our chance. I swim away and go off on my own now. The water is warm and the sun shines on my back. I’m wearing a navy blue bikini that my mom picked out. She’s not happy I went on this trip but at least she knows I’m here. And now I’m in the middle of the ocean, floating, feeling different, feeling alone.
Back on the boat we drink margaritas. I drink a lot because I want to feel better. He drinks a lot because he always does. There is a man next to us with his son who is about our age. They work in Boca Raton and come here a lot. The man is around fifty or so and has a firm belly, wears glasses, reminds me of my dad, but he’s more outgoing and he puts his arm around his son when he talks. We cheers our drinks and talk and laugh. He’s in publishing or sales or something like that and my ex is interested in a job down here in Florida instead of up north. Perhaps he’s thinking about living his life the way we used to imagine. I’m designated as the re-filler of drinks and step away to retrieve more margaritas. I come back with cups by the twos and everyone seems happy and engaged in conversation. I’m happy we met this man and that he is talking to us and having a good time. This is how vacation is supposed to be. These nice people are the kind you are supposed to meet.
The boat pulls into the dock and we put our clothes on over our bathing suits. I’m drunk and I’ve just had a great afternoon. Maybe he will move back home. Maybe he will return to me, to the life we dreamed of. As we step off the boat he grabs my hand. “I have to piss so bad,” he says. “That guy was so full of shit.”
I got a teaching job in the fall of 2014. As part of earning my Master’s degree in creative writing, I was able to teach an English composition class and reduce some of my tuition. I had never taught before, and with only a week of orientation and training, I felt extremely unprepared. I couldn’t sleep the night before my first day of school, so I called my brother. We weren’t speaking much at the time, even though I was back in Florida after a stint in Los Angeles, because I was afraid of getting close to him. When he answ
ered the phone, he sounded so good.
We talked for hours about his experience as a teacher’s assistant in grad school and he made me feel more comfortable about being in front of a room of “kids.” I lay stretched out on my bed in my parents’ apartment and listened to him tell stories and give advice. It was the closest I felt to him in years. I had been scared because I worried it wasn’t possible to have a real relationship with him, like the one we had when we were little, the way things used to be, but could never return to because of everything that had happened. But it was nice, and it filled a void in my heart that I’d had for a long time. I had tried to replace him with the guys I dated, seeking a relationship like this, so close, so loving, but no one could replace him, no one was like him. It made me realize that our love was infinite, that I loved him like a kindergarten crush, intense and doting, thinking it would last forever.
On the last night we stumble upon a restaurant on the beach. We take off our shoes to enter and decide to sit at the bar because that is how you get drinks quickly. No one is taking our order though. There is a wedding out back of the restaurant and everyone is wearing white. We can’t tell the servers from the partygoers. Everyone is drunk and dancing and we hear popular songs and joyous hollering. The bartender comes back and takes our orders and still forgets our drinks. I’m waiting on a tequila sunrise; he’s waiting on something with whiskey in it, maybe even just whiskey on the rocks. Our food comes and the Mahi is the freshest I’ve ever had. The fries are curly and crispy and there’s an aioli for dipping pleasure. He barely touches his hamburger because he wants his drink. Guests keep coming inside and asking for things; a straw, a cup of limes, a bottle of water, shots, more shots, napkins because they are sweating so much from dancing, and the bartender has orders to tend to the guests first. No one else is inside the place except for us. The food is delicious and I eat and watch the people dancing and singing. A wedding, a wonderful wedding for people who love each other and they invite their friends and families to watch and join and they all drive down across the rickety bridges and none of them throw apples into the Atlantic Ocean. A young couple comes inside drunk and sees our situation. Feeling badly they buy a round of shots that somehow gets made faster than our initial drinks and we take them. I feel good. I feel happiness here. People can be good. But his anger is growing. He wants his next glass. He wants more alcohol. I want him to think the wedding is beautiful, that the party is fun and everything is going to be okay. I want him to know that I love him but it’s different now. I love him like a parent loves a child, sad and understanding, unconditional with the condition that he will never know what it’s like to look at him here at this bar on this night, blue laser lights flashing, the dance floor, the nice couple, the fresh fish, the world spinning around and around all for us and knowing that it means nothing, that it is not good enough, that this is the last time I will ever see him because after this it truly is time to move on, to move forward, to keep my own world turning. His world is not meant to last forever.
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